With IT companies recruiting merely 50 per cent of aspirants at placement drives, the season looks very bleak for final-year engineering students.
Campus recruitment at colleges in and around the city began early this week. The two major recruiters, as usual, were TCS and Cognizant. TCS roped in students from SRM University, Rajalakshmi Engineering College and RMK Engineering College. “Except at SRM, the company recruited just 200 students from the other two colleges. Last year, it recruited over 450 from these campuses,” said a placement director.
At SRM, TCS recruited 858 students as compared to 1,231 last year. “TCS, as a matter of policy, does not share slots, while Cognizant has been sharing first day slots with Capgemini and Wipro this year. We have to look for at least six more companies to get our students placed,” said a placement officer of a private college.
Earlier this week, Cognizant recruited students from St. Joseph’s College of Engineering and Panimalar Engineering College but the numbers, again, were much lesser than last year. While some colleges are worried over fewer offers, many others, with no accreditation from companies, have not received any intimation of slots.
“While the top 15 colleges can expect 85 per cent placement, the lesser-known ones find it difficult to place even 40 per cent of the students,” said the principal of a college in Ramapuram.
Students say the pattern of aptitude tests, too, has changed. “We prepared for the regular format comprising questions on time and distance, and probability among others. Instead, we got puzzles, sudoko, crossword, twisters, mind teasers and analytical questions,” a student said. The interviews too, he said, had three panellists instead of one.
Prior to the placement drive in Chennai, TCS recruited 862 students from Sastra University as compared to 1,755 last year, and 300 from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, as opposed to 702 last year.
At VIT University, Accenture recruited 1,492 students and Wipro, 1308 students. Cognizant which took in 1,820 students last year, recruited 803 students this year. Accenture has not recruited students from city colleges so far.
Companies, however, maintained that their recruitment process was on track.
